Within Touching Distance of a Whale Shark: The Moment I Realized How Far I'd Come
Sometimes it takes a chance encounter to understand that the greatest distance isn't measured in kilometers
📍 Moalboal / Oslob, The Philippines
I had seen many reviews of this attraction - a special tour departing at 3 AM to see whale sharks. Here's my personal experience.
At the sales booth, the same professional vendor from whom I had purchased my canyoning tour the day before confidently told me: "You'll see them one hundred percent!"
Having learned from similar promises in Mexico, where I once visited Akumel Beach "famous for its many sea turtles," I knew what to expect. When they say you'll see the animals "one hundred percent," it means they're essentially pets. They live there. They're not going anywhere.
I paid 1800 pesos (about $35), and I can't believe I even thought twice about it. I set my alarm for 2 AM.
The plan worked perfectly because when I returned from the canyoning tour, I was completely exhausted. Partly because I hadn't had a single decent coffee that day, and partly because it was quite a physically demanding route. I realized this the next day when my muscles were sore all over.
I went to bed early, and this time I made sure with both the vendor and the driver who dropped me off that someone would pick me up at exactly 3 AM. And indeed, at 3:00, I received a message that he was outside. Lesson learned.
We collected people for 40 minutes and set off on a two-hour journey. What started as a flowing conversation where people shared their routes through the Philippines – most had been traveling in East Asia for some time, each at a different stage in life – became particularly interesting when one of them stood out from the rest.
A 19-year-old British girl told us that when her parents separated, she moved with her mother to Abu Dhabi, and later they relocated to Italy. I just imagined what it would be like to live that way from such a young age. She added that she really wanted to travel alone but didn't know where to go or how to do it, so she contacted an agency and joined a 50-day(!) organized youth tour traveling through Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and the Philippines.
She mentioned she was already tired of the group because being attached to people for 50 days is a lot, even if it's your best friend. Then my ear caught an interesting comment: "We also have a 28-year-old guy who's upset that everyone is young like me."
This made me think about how people choose to discover the world. I thought organized tours were a good choice for older adults who can afford a private guide everywhere and want a vacation style of "take me there and bring me back" without having to worry about planning and execution themselves. But apparently, young people choose this too. Interesting why.
The real reason this girl stuck in my mind is that after a few minutes, someone asked her what she had already done here on the island, and she replied: "Where are we?"
There was an awkward silence because we didn't quite understand what she meant. So she asked again: "Which island is this? Where are we now?" and I realized how confused she was from the sheer number of places she had seen in such a short time.
I felt a twinge in my heart. How sad that she's visiting some of the most amazing places in the world and doesn't even remember them.
And there it was, another fear born.
The flowing conversation quickly calmed down, and everyone fell asleep because it was still night. Even the histyrical driving of the professional driver – the one who drives here every day, at the same time, and knows the twists and turns of the road with his eyes closed (or at least that's what I tell myself to justify his excessive speed) – didn't bother them from falling asleep. But I was sitting in the front seat, so I couldn't help but maintain an elevated heart rate during this adrenaline-filled drive.
The sun was waking up. We had arrived.
Around us were already many other vans, sounds of a lively bustling town, as if it were midday and everyone had been awake for hours. We found an entire city built around the main attraction - whale sharks.
Going down to the beach area, there are various stalls, all offering "the best deal" - jewelry, food, convenience stores, freshly squeezed juices. It was very surprising to see so many people at such an early hour.
We sat down to listen to the safety briefing. We were told we must board the boats with a life vest, wash off any sunscreen because its chemicals are harmful to animals, and under no circumstances touch the whale sharks - an instruction that was repeated several times.
Touch them? How do you even get close enough? Thoughts raced through my mind. I didn't really know what awaited me.
Our group received a number, and on the screen, the numbers changed just like at a medical clinic queue. An automated system called out numbers, and the groups proceeded toward the boats on the shore.
We waited about an hour until our turn came. Now it's clear why they built a shopping city here.
The time had come. We received life jackets and reached the shoreline.
"You're alone, right?" the guide asked me. "Yes, why?" I answered, confused. "Come join this group instead, each boat can only take 12 people, and you're the 13th."
I grumbled for a moment. There are other people here who came alone, but they've already connected with each other so they're not really alone anymore. Or maybe it was completely random and I'm making up a story in my head (likely). And anyway, why do I care which group I'm in? Everyone will see the whale shark in a moment.
Maybe it's because I wanted to talk with the girls in the group but was waiting for "the right moment." And now I realized I'd missed it, like many things I miss in life because I'm not quick enough, and people I miss because I'm not social enough.
Let it go, let's see my new group.
There are many people around, so I didn't know exactly who was in my group. I only saw the guide they transferred me to, in something that sounded like "she's yours now, don't forget her."
Among all the faces, one was familiar.
I recognized him immediately, and we looked at each other, but he didn't seem to recognize me. I've mentioned before that this is one of my skills as an introvert - I can recognize someone and not express anything that indicates I've recognized them because I first want to calculate the situation and examine whether I want this interaction or not. It might sound terrible, but that's me.
We were in the same boat, very literally and very metaphorically.
We headed out to the ocean. It's a very short distance from the shore; you can actually see all the boats from the beach. This surprised me greatly because I thought we'd go to the heart of the ocean to see these amazing creatures. But they're right here, close to home, pets.
The boats work like an assembly line - they arrive at the shore, load tourists, line up in a row. In another boat is a guy feeding the whale shark, moving in a line parallel to the row of boats. We descended into the water with our life jackets, and the whale shark simply swam back and forth in front of us like a supermodel, while displaying its enormous mouth.
Now I understood why they say not to touch them - because it's right here! Within touching distance from me!
Each time it passed, I examined a different part of it. At first, it was the unmissable mouth, the eyes, the gills, the scars it has on one fin and on its tail. I wondered what its life had been like. How does such a powerful creature find itself as a pet for tourist entertainment?
The spots on its body (I want to say skin, but fish have something other than skin, right?) resemble a tiger's pattern and give a feeling of power and strength. Underneath it swims a smaller fish, one of those that eat the leftovers of larger fish. I looked back for a moment and saw a variety of colorful fish, and even felt slight stings from jellyfish. Suddenly, in the distance, I saw a sea turtle swimming happily and got excited to tell the group when we returned. I wondered who else had seen it.
Although I had never seen such a large fish before, and it truly is a special experience, I felt it was too touristy. In the water, they tell us to stay in a relatively small area, and it ends up with literally "everyone on top of everyone." Every moment someone else blocks your view, every moment you accidentally get an elbow or a kick. The masks we received were those found on the boat, the ones the group before us had used, and the ones before them and before them. Who knows if they were ever cleaned. It wasn't very pleasant.
We stayed in the water for half an hour, so everyone could take their best picture with their GoPro, and I was satisfied pretty quickly.
On the way back, I couldn't hold back anymore.
"Really cool, isn't it?" I asked in Hebrew.
"You bet! I was about to ask you something in English, I swear!" replied the guy from my home country.
"Are you kidding me? I saw you yesterday at the Kawasan Falls, we talked a little!" I said in amazement.
"Ohhhh! That's you!" It finally clicked for him. Not sure why it took so long - I still had the same long braid and exactly the same orange life vest - the official marine activities uniform of the Philippines.
We talked about our routes. He told me he was 27, a company commander who had just finished his military service, and this was his post-service trip. I told him about myself, and immediately he asked: "Tell me, how much did this tour cost you?"
I laughed because I missed the directness of conversations in my native language. I missed getting straight to the point.
He was a bit disappointed when he realized I had paid less, because if there's something we hate, it's feeling like we got a bad deal. Lately, I've found that I got the best price in every such conversation when someone asks me how much I paid. I wonder if the price comparison instinct ingrained in me since childhood serves me faithfully in my journeys around the world.
And there it was – another opportunity to reintroduce myself. I'm really starting to love this because it updates with high frequency, and each time I refine the wording and how I see myself.
I'm a digital nomad, I have a blog of stories, and I wander the world. While doing so, I list the places I've been as if reciting a grocery list. I hate this. It feels like diminishing a country to a split second that gets lost and forgotten in an instant. How can I do this to a country that has affected me so much? How can I recite a list as if I hopped from shop to shop in a mall? I need to find a way to give each country its proper place without wasting the whole day for whoever is listening to me.
He told me he was continuing to Siquijor that day, another island I'd heard a lot about, which will have to wait for my next visit to the Philippines.
"Can I have your number?" he asked. I was just thinking that we probably would never see each other again.
"Sure," I answered, and he started typing in his phone "05" which is the prefix for all phone numbers in my home country.
"Oh... I have an Australian number..." I said awkwardly, feeling how pretentious it sounded.
His look and the way he said "You don't say!" just made me burst out laughing. I laughed out loud, just like the laughter coming out of me now as I write these words and revisit the situation, because suddenly I realized how far I've come, how different I am. Maybe we came from the same place, but we are in such different places in life, even though we're both here in this moment.
We parted ways and continued on our separate paths. I wondered if we would ever meet again, and in which part of the world.
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Thank you for being part of this journey.
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